Sheesh! Everytime I go down a few pounds, I go right back up a few pounds. What a drag. I was doing well this week, lost 2 pounds from Monday to Thurs, now on Thurs, back up 2 pounds. OK, so I ate some junior mints yesterday but the day's total was 1900 calories. That shouldn't make me gain 2 pounds! I know its just the scale but I can't seem to stop weighing myself every morning and getting either excited (when I'm losing of course) and depressed when I gain. It seems like whenever I work from home, I gain weight and when I go into the office I lose. I usually eat about 1400 to 1800 calories when I go in, plus if my DH doesn't give me a ride to work, I must walk several blocks and climb up and down subway stairs, which obviously burns a few. And I always go to the gym when I'm downtown but not when I'm home. I swear if I had to go in everyday I'd be so much slimmer! Of course then there are weekends to deal with in suppressing my cravings. Anyhow, short of going to the office when my boss let's me be at home, what should I do?

Girl, step away from the scale!!! Your body weight naturally varies from day to day. Getting on the scale a couple times a week is doing nothing but killing your spirit. Weigh yourself once a week AT MOST. You are doing just fine.

Move your scale--put it in a cabinet or up on a high shelf in a closet or something...anything where it will be inconvenient for you to have to take it out and put it back every day. Take it out ONCE a week (or even less frequently).

Keep in mind that to gain a pound of fat, you need to eat 3500 calories MORE than you burn--if you did not eat over 8000 calories yesterday, then those 2 pounds are NOT fat You may be retaining water for any number of reasons, or it could just be a NORMAL fluctuation. Heck, my weight can change by up to 5 pounds in just 1 day. You could lose 1 pound tomorrow and then eat and do the EXACT same things the next day and not lose any weight at all (or even gain)--there are just SO many factors that come into play.

Focus on getting exercise as often as possible and on eating healthy foods. If you find yourself eating junk while working from home, then rid your home of junk food. Removing temptation makes it much easier to resist

Thanks for the advice re scale removal..though I must admit I'm not sure I can go through with it as I've been weighing myself every single day since I can remember. It kind of helps me get it in gear if I see it going up, though I definitely appreciate the explanation about the weight gain. Ugh! Its just so much funner when the scale goes down from the prior day; oh well, can't have it all I just get so lazy when I'm working from home (which I'm doing now), so I know I won't go exercise and I just ate a snack, though I had promised myself to not eat til 12pm (I just ate breakfast at 9am, but already snacking when not hungry by 11:30am). LOL. No willpower when I'm home all day. At least the snack is a healthy protein bar. I don't keep many unhealthy snacks (only kept for DH) and I make sure to stock up on healthy snacks so I don't dip into DH's ice cream.

Mami--I'm a daily weigher, so I know what you're going through! BUT, I decided to take another look at things. I've been logging my weight since January, so I put each day's weight into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I looked at only the Saturday weights. Of all the weeks, over 80% of them registered losses. Those that were gains were less than half a pound each week--and that half a pound did come off the following week. So, relax--if you concentrate on losing, you will lose. Those junior mints WILL NOT stay with you!!

Mami...I feel your pain!
I find myself sneaking up on the scale, getting on it slooooowly one foot at a time, waiting for "half" my weight to register before sneaking on the other half....how silly is THAT???? But one thing I can definitely agree with is that when I find myself obsessing over that number and letting it control my day, I have to stash the scale for a few days to get my perspective back.
The tape measure can be your best friend when the scale is being a spiteful difficult creature

I once spoke to a woman who successfully battled her daily weighing obsession by putting her scale in the trunk of her car! If she wanted to weigh, she had to go all the way out to the car and bring the scale back in to the bathroom floor (so it was always on the same surface for consistency's sake). She definitely stopped weighing every day

Sometimes I weigh daily; sometimes I don't (because sometimes I forget until I've already had breakfast or showered, and then I know it won't be consistent with my previous unshowered, empty tummy weights). I never let it get me down, though, because I understand that fat doesn't really come and go so quickly as the scale likes to make us think it does. Unless you exercise like a fiend, you really can't lose a whole pound of fat in a day, but the scale measures SO much more than just fat, so sometimes it will say you lost a pound in a day. It's quite the frustrating gadget.

I can understand how weighing and seeing a good number can motivate you to keep up the good work, but that's obviously not what's happening now, so maybe you should try to break the habit for a while. If you still want to weigh every day, I HIGHLY suggest doing as alinnell suggested and tracking your weight so you can see the overall trend rather than just the daily fluctuations. Sometimes the number of days you gain will outnumber the days you lose, but maybe you'll lose more pounds than you gained total, which still equates to a loss over time.

As for working from home, get yourself some workout videos! Exercise is cumulative--if you can only do 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, it still all adds up. I worked from home on Tuesday since my car was in the shop, and I ended up doing MORE exercise than normal because every chance I got, I would do about 10-15 minutes of my WATP DVD (and I still ended up getting more work done than when in the office because I didn't have people stopping by to chat all the time ). I ended up doing about 50 minutes total instead of my usual 30-minute morning workout.

It sounds like you're doing well by stocking up with healthy snacks. Do you plan your menu out ahead of time for the day? I do this, and it really helps because I know exactly how many calories I'll have that day by eating what I plan out. I pack all my food except for dinner and bring it to work with me. You could put all of your food for the day together in one spot in your fridge. Once the food for that day is gone, that's it! It really makes me pace myself, so to speak, not to mention it greatly helps in controlling my portions since I can't just go back for seconds or take the whole container of something with me to work.

The one last tip I have: brush your teeth when you feel the need to snack. If you're really not hungry, brushing your teeth can help because just think about how many things taste ickier after brushing your teeth! Your waistline and your gums will both appreciate it (plus a few more tubes of toothpaste each year is much cheaper than more food)

Alright, I"ll go before this novel of a post gets any longer...